Queer Comedians Share What They Love (And Hate) About Nanette

“The important thing to know is I was medium-stoned when I initially watched Nanette,” says Guy Branum, comedian and author of the book My Life as a Goddess. “I didn’t know we were all going to have to write thinkpieces about it.”

Despite his altered state of mind, Branum continues, “it made me cry and it made me think. …It’s the most important thing to happen in comedy this decade.”

Since debuting on Netflix this June, Hannah Gadsby’s stand-up special has prompted waves of adulation and criticism that show no sign of abating. Throughout the show, the Australian lesbian comedian presents an unsparing, incisive account of sexual and misogynistic trauma she has experienced over the course of her life. She goes on to explain to the audience that comedy and self-deprecating humor no longer serve her, given that for marginalized people, they work to humiliate rather than humble. In doing so, she declares that she is quitting comedy. Much of the show is not ostensibly humorous, and parts are intentionally discomfiting.

In response, the New York Times trumpeted Gadsby’s “Comedy-Destroying, Soul-Affirming Art;” the Los Angeles Times declared Nanette to be “raw and revolutionary;” NPR called it “scorching.” Yet Gadsby’s show has proven divisive, too. In a recent piece for The Outline, critic Peter Moskowitz explains that at first, he “couldn’t quite figure out what I hated about it,” before examining the ways Nanette “shits on an entire language of comedy developed over decades largely by Jews and queers” in an attempt to “make straight, cis viewers feel comfortably woke.”

Within the comedy community, too, Nanette has become a point of particular scrutiny, especially among Gadsby’s fellow queer comedians.

“You couldn’t escape the impact that it had initially,” says Matt Rogers, co-host of the Las Culturistas podcast. “It became this thing where you had to check it out, just to continue a conversation.”

Queer comics have seen that conversation grow increasingly polarized since it began.

“For the most part, the comedy industry is perceiving it very well,” says comedian Lisa Best. “But not too long ago, I saw articles written by a big name comedian angry that the trend in comedy specials seem to be what they’re calling ‘real,’ and not funny. But in the same article he admits to not watching the special.”

“Straight guys at clubs will roll their eyes and talk about what a terrible time for comedy this is, and it’s the antithesis of comedy and they don’t even understand it,” says Branum. “But I talked to a woman at a party an hour ago who said it was fundamentally transformative to the way she saw herself and her opportunities in standup.”

“There are a lot of people who are very upset because they feel like the business of comedy is going in a different direction, where it’s more like a TED talk,” says comedian Sampson McCormick. “This has nothing to do with the person we’re talking about, this is just overall... it’s just about getting butts in the seats. So if you’re a viral sensation who runs through traffic with high heels on, if you get a million followers and you want to do standup, you can get into clubs that people who have been working for 10, 20 years to get into.”

Nanette, by design, interrogates how comedy and the fundamental structures of joke-telling work to enable marginalization. In some ways, Gadsby’s show has become a Rorschach test of sorts for comedians and critics. It has been compared favorably to a 2012 stand-up set in which comedian Tig Notaro discusses a just-delivered breast cancer diagnosis and her mother’s death; Notaro recently wrote to the New York Times that the show should be “required viewing,” and that “it’s going to be very interesting to see what comedians do post-Nanette.” The latter sentiment was echoed by her fellow queer comedians.

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“It’s interesting to see who thinks they’re the gatekeepers of comedy all of a sudden,” says Rogers. “Unfortunately, the conversation has sort of been co-opted by comedians who have a problem with Nanette, because it’s not comedy as they’ve seen it before. …Everyone’s kind of panicking, because they’re not capable of what Hannah Gadsby accomplished in that special.”

“There is something powerful about a woman in the middle of a comedy show shouting something as un-self-conscious as, ‘I am in my prime,’” says Branum. “There’s something dangerous about that. It’s a threat to Jerry Seinfeld in his car getting coffee.”

One of Nanette’s most revelatory declarations is its attack on self-deprecating humor — a move that seems to have come as a relief to many queer comedians.

“I understand where she’s coming from,” says Best. “When I started out doing comedy I also did a lot of self-deprecating humor.” But, she adds, “You start to believe these things that you’re saying.”

Jokes at one’s own expense can take a toll, and as Gadsby points out in Nanette, can further entrench negative feelings about marginalized groups.

In her show, Gadsby contemplates quitting comedy because it feels toxic and insufficient for the messages she wants to convey. That’s fostered dialogue about the ways the comedy world has failed queer performers, a topic that Branum also addresses in his book.

“The chapter that I wrote about stand-up also centers significantly on Eddie Murphy’s Delirious, and the opening five minutes of homophobia,” Branum says. (Murphy’s special, recorded in 1983, begins with him announcing, “F*ggots aren’t allowed to look at my ass while I’m on stage. That’s why I keep moving while I’m up here.”)

“I cannot separate the good and bad that [Delirious] did for me,” Branum notes. “It made me love stand-up and hate myself. It’s through my participation that I exorcised the bad parts of what he did and strengthened the good parts of what I did.”

That’s not to say that queer comics are calling for a sanitization of comedy, or that they only want jokes that are polite. “I think comedy at its best should make it okay for us to look at the things that we don’t want to look at,” says Branum. “Good comedy should hold your hand while you look at parts of yourself you don’t like.”

He cites pioneers like Scott Thompson as inspirations. “Good queer comics have been doing the responsible work of showing people stuff they don’t want to see for decades,” Branum says. “We just didn’t give any of them a special.”

But that cultural inattention to queer voices may be coming to an end. When asked if the world of comedy is changing, Lisa Best replies, “I think it already has.”

Comedian Erin Markey agrees. “I think comedy was already changing before the special. Netflix deciding to produce and promote it is a direct effect of that kind of comedy already having started to make headway.”

“I’ve done videos about HIV, misogyny, drinking,” Henry says. “I feel like comedy is morphing into a tool to educate people, and have people understand where different individuals come from.”

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That has come as a relief to many performers. “When you’re different — gay, a person of color, a person with a disability — you have to play in the boys’ world for a long time,” says Rogers. “It takes a while to get comfortable enough to say, ‘you know what? I’m done auditioning for my community, I’m done pretending this is my sense of humor. I’m just going to be ME now.’”

McCormick notes that Gadsby’s personal style might fall into a category known as “alt comedy.”

“There’s different genres,” he says. “The storyteller, the setup and punch, the physical comic. It’s 2018 — like it or not, the business is expanding. There will be more styles. More people from the internet. More people who do TED-talk-style. I wouldn't be surprised if people start doing a PowerPoint presentation while they’re up there. We just have to get ready.”

It’s for that reason that Branum bristled at Gadsby’s declaration that she was leaving comedy just as it’s getting more complex.

Instead, Branum wants to see a form in which “gay person gets knocked down, gets back up, makes another joke. We shouldn’t have to get knocked down, but we do.”

After all, resilience is but one of the superpowers that queer people wield over the heterosexuals who have dominated culture for far too long.

“Do I think gay people have acquired funniness as a defense measure, as we acquired hotness and being too good at things? Absolutely,” says Branum. “It shouldn’t have to be like that. But it’s wonderful that it is.”

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